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From: "credoquaabsurdum" <credoquaabsurdum@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: What is the definition of "paradine shift".
Date: 3 May 2005 02:35:05 -0700
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This individual has posted this query elsewhere, and has hopefully
found an answer. A scholar named Thomas Kuhn wrote a very influential
book in 1962 called _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_. The term
"paradigm shift" as an educated buzzword dates from then.
Kuhn's basic point is that a revolution in science does not come about
in a pretty way. There are powerful interests that keep people from
switching beliefs, and these hold back the acceptance of new scientific
theories in the world. When the shift comes, it comes as a revolution,
because the old theory has both adherents and investments behind it
that refuse to give way.
American and British deconstructionists enthusiastically adopted the
term to describe the shift from center-to-center that Jacques Derrida
described in "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human
Sciences," delivered at Johns Hopkins in 1969 and published in 1970.
Suddenly, the term "paradigm shift" meant much, much more. In
present-day usage, it now refers to any great, monumental change in a
field of study.
Examples:
In language teaching, thirty years ago, linguists believed that you
didn't need to teach communicative skills, and that simply loading the
students up on formal patterns of orally-drilled grammar would lead to
greater spoken fluency of and by itself. Things have now changed, with
communicative functions being seen as primary in importance in
speaking. There's been a paradigm shift.
In medicine, people believed that stress caused ulcers. A lot of drug
companies funded a lot of research into exactly how that occurred.
Then, along came a doctor who was forced to swallow his own bacterial
concoction to disprove them. Ulcers developed, and the medical
community, which had previously labeled him a near-kook, had to change
their viewpoint, grdugingly. Another paradigm shift.
All in all, the misappropriation of the term is lamentable. It sounds
educated, but hearing people who have nothing to do with science or
deconstruction talk about paradigm shifts in something like fashion
accessories still makes me wince. Uptalk intonation inevitably
accompanies such use, I've found.
"There's been a paradigm shift in spangles? It's really important? They
used to be clear, but now they're pink everywhere on everything that's
in?"
Then, we have discussions like this one. Eloi, eloi, lamasabachthani?
"Paradigm" is a borrowed Greek word that means example or model. It is
pronounced, in modern Greek, as /pa 'radi:yma/., with the "y" sound
actually being a gamma. The bastard pronunciation in English,
/'paeradi:m/ has come about influenced by that (I think). Historically,
/paeradaim/ has been the proper English pronunciation The "g" is
pronounced in paradigmatic.
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